My mom is terrific at a lot of things, but…

I would be misleading you if I said I’m ‘just’ a heavy sleeper. You might be the sort of person who can hear a fucking ninja creeping across the floor (to kill you) while asleep, but when I am sleeping I’m as good as knocked out after taking ten sleeping pills. If it wasn’t for my pulse, I would be pronounced dead every morning.

So waking up is a daily challenge for me. Over the years, I have developed many strategies. Such as setting 25 separate alarms on my cellphone all within the space of half an hour – all of them 1-2 minutes apart from each other – around the time I want to wake up. There have been times when I have successfully slept through this cacophony. The problem starts when I want to, say, take a short nap. I might tell my mom that I need to go somewhere and that I’m decide to take a short nap (I don’t do that often) and in case my alarm doesn’t work could she please wake me up on time.

My mom’s terrific at so many things, but one thing she’s failed miserably so far is to be able to wake me up. Ever. Her method works like thus…

Mom: Wake up. You just slept through your alarm and you said you need to go somewhere now.

Me: Mffmfphhhh?

Mom: Are you going to wake up now then?

Me: Mmmfffppphshh…

Mom: Good. Also, there’s this untidy pile of papers lying on your table. Is that supposed to be thrown away?

Me: Mmmpppppfffhhhh!

When I do wake up approximately two hours later (or until an angry friend calls me irritatedly on my cellphone, whichever is earlier) I find that I have massively overshot my nap time and that piece of paper in which I had figured out how to solve the BP oil spill has been thrown away. Mom comes back into my room when she hears my “AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!” scream that would put Hollywood sound libraries to shame.

Mom: What’s the matter?

Me: I overslept. AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Mom: I did wake you up.

Me: I beg to differ, as you can see. Also, I can’t find that piece of paper where I had figured out a kick-ass solution to the BP oil spill problem. The one where I’d planned to use Chetan Bhagat to block the spewing oil vents.

Mom: I threw that away. You consented to it.

Me: AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Chetan Bhagat is, like, the fucking Neo to all global environmental crisis problems. (This is the publicity poster for a future film starring Chetan Bhagat where he will end poverty in India while struggling with the 'ethos and pathos of OUR ENTIRE GENERATION'.)

I think at times when she really wants to throw some stuff of mine out she deliberately asks me that when I’m half asleep. After all, “Mmmmpppffhhh” is unequivocally ‘consent’. And now you also know why Nokia, Inc is my most trusted friend when I have to wake up at a specific time.

A couple of weeks back, I decided to try to wake up early, like around 9 am and so, put an alarm on my phone. For about TEN days, I would wake up at 12 noon only to see that someone had shut off the alarm on the phone (me, I’m assuming). Eventually I decided to conserve battery and didn’t bother with the alarm at all :P

Tell your mom to continue trying to wake you up till she sees you exit the house :P

I have tried telling my mom to keep pestering me till I wake up. What happens every time though is that I emphatically convince her that yes, I am indeed wide awake, and I’m alert enough to fight with a few ninjas as soon as she turns her back and goes away. It would seem that when I’m half asleep, I’m exceptionally eloquent and convincing. Or so my mom claims.

Try the method I mention. Set 10-20 alarms on your mobile each 2 minutes apart from the other and with snooze time set to five minutes. That way you have a constant barrage of alarms / re-activated snoozed alarms for a period of 30-40 minutes that’s sure to wake you up. You might want to coat your rooms walls in rubber though, just in case you get irritated and hurl the phone away from bed attempting to silence it.

I wake up at 5am these days. I know, I know, it never ceases to surprise me every day either, when till a few months ago my definition of ‘dawn’ was noon.